


On The Road

by koanju (verstehen)



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-01-17
Updated: 2010-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-13 20:23:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verstehen/pseuds/koanju
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first thing she noticed, besides consciousness, was the lack of pain. (A Heroes road trip.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	On The Road

The first thing she noticed, besides consciousness, was the lack of pain. Waking up face down in the middle of nowhere alone seemed like it should be associated with pain. But it wasn’t. She didn’t hurt at all. When she pushed herself up to her hands and knees, she saw that she was wearing the remnants of clothing. Jean shorts or pants – she couldn’t really tell as the material was gone below her knees – and a few scraps of fabric around her neck and covering her shoulders that she thought used to be a blue shirt. It was a little too covered in ground in dirt and dark stains she thought were blood to be completely sure about the color. Her surroundings were as desolate and ragged as her clothing. It was desert, arid and dry and there seemed to be a large circle of broken and uprooted plants -- trees, bushes, and even some bright flower petals -- extending out around her. She knelt down and felt the hard packed dirt, and layer of sand covering it, letting the sand dribble through her fingers onto the ground.

Not only was she not in pain but she didn’t seem to have any injuries. She ran her fingers along her legs, first her left, then her right. Next she examined her arms, bringing them up to her eyes before using her hands. Her chest was third, though she was careful with the remains of her shirt. There was little enough to cover her as it was and the last thing she wanted to do was rip or tear it more. That left her neck and face for last. Her entire body felt smooth, no nicks, cuts, bruises, or even hair to her fingers. She must shave regularly. Her hair was soft to the touch and thick. And blonde, she realized when she brought her curls in front of her face. She was blonde.

She shielded her eyes with her hands and looked around. There weren’t any real landmarks she could see but she thought she heard noises in the distance. Cars, maybe, on a road. That might be optimistic.

She thought that optimism might be the only she had going for her right now.

She sighed, a little surprised by the sound of her own voice, and picked a direction. From the position of the sun in the sky – and how did she know _that_? – it was probably two or three in the afternoon and she was heading east, stumbling along with her bare feet. She stopped and looked back up, rocking onto her heels. She sighed again and started walking. She did her best to avoid any rocks in the ground until she realized that her feet didn’t feel it and she wasn’t being cut anyway. Her feet were clean, except for the dirt, every time to she stopped and checked them.

She wasn’t sure how long she walked but the sun was starting to set (thank god because she was tired of sweating) as the noises got closer and closer. Like being surprised she wasn’t in pain, she was surprised by how not thirsty she was as she walked. She wasn’t fatigued either. Even though she’d been walking for what had to be hours, her feet didn’t hurt, her legs weren’t sore, and she wasn’t thirsty. A part of her knew that she should be disturbed by the way her body seemed to be holding up even in the desert heat, but… the rest of her knew it was natural and right. So she kept walking, right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot, counting up in her head, upward one step at a time. She reached one thousand four hundred thirty seven steps before she realized the feel of the ground under her feet had changed.

Asphalt. She had reached a road. A real road.

She smiled, happy to have made some progress, and squinted up and down the road, looking for a sign. She wasn’t sure how much the road sign would mean to her but some sign of where she was or where the next town might be had to be helpful. It looked like the closest sign was north of where she was, so she changed her direction and started following the road. There had to be someone out there, somewhere, right? If she had to walk one hundred miles to the nearest town, she would.

Still, she was pretty sure there would be signs of civilization before that point. She hoped. After all, that had been noises she’d heard in this direction that had sent her this way to begin with.

It seemed like optimism was working so far.

So she walked north, starting the count over. At two hundred forty seven, she reached a road sign. She was apparently on I-80. “That’s one mystery solved,” she muttered, again surprised by her own voice. She had an accent, a real faint one, that seemed southern and she barely even noticed it. It was in her ‘esses.’

She smiled at the piece – no, _pieces_ , of information – and kept walking. She started her count again at zero but was quickly distracted by sound coming from behind her. She turned around, now walking backward, so she could see the road better. She stuck her thumb out, not sure it would work.

But the car slowed down and came to a stop about twenty feet ahead of her. That gave her time to take a real look at it; a dusty brown station wagon. There was a ratty old Garfield stuck to the inside of the rear window and a ‘Baby on Board’ caution sign on the other side. There were about ten different bumper stickers, from one that said ‘Well-behaved women rarely make history’ to a small, square bumper sticker with a peace sign on it. She walked closer and saw the woman inside. She was older, maybe in her forties or fifties, with long graying hair pulled back into a braid. “What happened to _you_?” the woman asked, her voice low and surprised.

She checked her pockets, looking for a wallet. There was none but she pulled out sixty dollars in cash from her front pockets. Three crisp twenties that looked nearly new. “Where’s the nearest town? I’ll pay for gas,” she said, offering the bills to the woman through the window.

“Forget the money, child, you need a _hospital_!” The woman tsked at her and gestured toward the passenger seat. “Get in and I’ll take you.”

She trotted around and slipped into the car, buckling her seatbelt by habit. “Thank you. I’ll pay,” she repeated, for lack of anything else to say.

“I’m Alice.” She pointed to the keys clinking against the dashboard. One had a little wooden keychain with the name ‘Alice’ spelled out. She started up the wagon, patting the dashboard. “What’s your name?”  
“I –“ She stopped and frowned. “I…” Her frown increased. “I don’t know,” she whispered and turned to stare out the window.

It was the best way to ignore the sense of disquiet in her gut at the revelation.

The drive seemed long, though it was probably only about forty-five minutes to the next town. She spent it staring out of the car at the desert, picking at the remains of her clothes, and listening to Alice with half an ear. The older woman babbled about her children – even fished pictures out of her purse to show her. They were old pictures, of the children as children, though Alice talked about them as adults. “Daniel’s a lawyer and Mellie’s a scientist,” Alice said. They had their mother’s square faces and stub noses, but not her pleasant smile. A mean part of her wondered if they had her gift of gab. She didn’t ask, of course, because a woman who carried pictures of her adult children as children… was someone desperately trying to hold onto the past. She thought Alice must not seem them very often. She would have recent pictures to show off if she did.  
Alice was just lonely. So she let her talk, only half-listening, as they drove closer to the nearest town – Milford, apparently. Milford, Nebraska.

Her true attention was on her problem. The big problem. The question she couldn’t answer and terrified her because she couldn’t answer it.

 _Who was she_? What was her name? What was she doing in the middle of _Nebraska_? She might not know her name but she knew she wasn’t someone who lived in Nebraska. And the final question: what had happened to her? Why were her clothes in rags? Why had she woken up alone in the middle of nowhere? What had happened that had cost her not only her clothes but her memories?

“I don’t know,” she mumbled an answer to one of Alice’s questions. That was the answer to most of them: Alice kept asking about her past, or what happened, or what she was doing in Nebraska.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” Alice said and the worry in the other woman’s voice brought her attention back to the woman driving. “Perhaps I should drive faster. I hope there is a hospital nearby! The sooner we get you to a doctor, the better off you’ll be.”

“I’m sorry, what were you asking me?” she asked, folding her hands together in her lap as she studied the other woman. Some of the worry in Alice’s face eased, though she felt the car speed up anyway.

“You should pay better attention,” Alice scolded mildly. “I asked if you were hungry or thirsty. You said you didn’t know how long you were out in the desert. I should have thought about dehydration earlier!” She tsked, though this time it was for herself. “There’s a cooler in the back, sweetheart, help yourself. There’s water in there and some sandwiches.”

She reached around and located the cooler sitting on the floor between the seats so it would be in easy reach to Alice as she drove. She flipped open the lid and reached in for a water. “Drink it slowly,” Alice advised. “You’ll make yourself sick if you are dehydrated.”

“Okay,” she said quietly, pulling out her bottled water – the sensation of the cold bottle in her hand was startling – and letting the lid slide shut. “How much farther?”

“We’re coming up on the Milford exit in about three miles,” Alice said. “And we’ll stop at the first place we see, to find you a doctor.”

She wasn’t so sure a doctor would be able to help, especially if she wasn’t injured. “Maybe it’s emotional?” she said aloud, cutting off what Alice had been saying about dehydration.

“What’s emotional, honey?”

“My amnesia. I don’t feel injured. Maybe it’s emotional. Maybe I don’t remember anything because I did something awful or something awful happened to me,” she reasoned, trying to ignore the lead weight that seemed to have grown in the pit of her stomach. “I know everything… except who I am. Is that how amnesia works? Or do you have to suddenly learn everything all over again?”

“I don’t know, sweetie.” Alice frown, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel. “We need to name you, child. I can’t keep calling you pet names, especially not if I’m going to stick and visit you after! It wouldn’t be right just leaving you all alone.” Alice made the tsking noise again and she realized it was a habit for the older woman. “I am retired and just touring the country. I don’t have anywhere else better to be!” Alice chuckled softly but to her it sounded more sad than amused. “I suppose Jane is the traditional name for situations like these.” Alice signaled, even though there weren’t any other cars, and started to get over into the exit lane.

She thought about that, tasting the word in her mouth. “Jane. _Jane_.” She made a face. It didn’t seem right at all.

“No, you’re right, sweetie,” Alice agreed. “Jane’s far too plain for a pretty girl like you. Suzie? No, too old. Cassie? Too tragic,” she said. “Oh, this is harder than I thought it would be. At least with Daniel and Mellie, I had James to help me!” She felt the car start to slow down as they reached a gentle curve heading toward a stop sign. “Oh, I know the perfect name for you! Diana! We’ll call you Diana!”

“Roman goddess of the hunt,” she murmured. “And Wonder Woman’s real name.” Though how she knew either one of those things…

“Well, you certainly know your classic mythology and your comic books!” Alice said and this time her laugh sounded much more genuine. “Maybe you have a brother or a boyfriend, Diana, because you don’t look much like the comic collecting type. That’s terrific; you’ll have people looking for you.” She brought the car to a rolling stop as they entered the town. “You’ll be home before you know it.”

She – _Diana_ , now, she had to remember to answer to Diana, even if it felt wrong – smiled at her. “Yeah, home,” she agreed, putting as much happiness as she could muster into her voice regardless of how much she really felt it. And she didn’t. Something about the thought of ‘home’ just made Diana feel sad, like the weight in her stomach was getting heavier.

“Everything will be all right, Diana,” Alice said.

Somehow she didn’t believe it.  



End file.
